Second Sin: Little Red and the Wolf (Part 7)- Problems Tend To Escalate
--- Bell ---
She bit her lip hard enough to draw blood before rushing for the side entrance she knew DeWolf had used to enter the building, because while it looked like Mercer and Scarlet were in trouble DeWolf was the only one who seemed to take a possibly fatal blow. Whatsmore the children he’d found were the main reason they came here. If something happened to them then this whole night would prove more harm than good.
While she wasn’t entirely sure of what Mercer was capable of in a fight she knew enough about Scarlet’s fights in the lab that while her sister might be backing into a corner, she’d have no problem fighting her way out if it came down to it.
That didn’t stop her from worrying she was making a mistake taking the side entrance instead of cutting through the front to find her sister. (I hope this is the right call…)
Going off of what her other selves told her as well as their continuing whispers she was able to quickly make her way through the building and find the room DeWolf had found the children. The scene was just like the vision her other selves had shown her, save for the large blood spatter on the floor, the fact that the door frame had been ripped apart by something, and that the blood continued in a trail down the hall.
--- Mercer ---
Drawing his gun he quickly fired a series of shots at each of Romulus’s men, purposely aiming for places that while bloody would be survivable if they got treatment quickly enough.
As the spell circuit’s electricity began to die down he released his grappler’s hook and retracted the line as he dropped to the ground in a roll before sliding the emptied clip out of his gun and quickly replacing it with another.
“Mercer.” Romulus hissed as if his name was a curse. (Which is the standard reaction.) “Do you have any idea what you just did?!”
“Stopped an unknown spell circuit from going off while I’m in the same room as it.” He pointed at the bullet hole in Romulus’s side. “Also shot an asshole.”
“What you just did was prevent me from taking a dangerous monster off of the streets!” Romulus snarled.
“Would that be the same one you put on the streets in the first place?” He idly wondered, noting how Romulus’s fingers were twitching. (Meaning he wants to stall me for time in the same way I want information.) “Because I’m fairly certain to send that back after it’s escaped would require it to be… here.”
“Which was the point of this circuit to summon it back here before it can cause anymore damage!” Romulus told him with a grimace. “It’s taken me weeks to gather the reagents necessary to perform this ritual, to try and fix this mess!”
“And how do you know you weren’t just going to summon another one of these monsters from… wherever you summoned it?” He asked, feeling like that was an important threat to underline. “I mean even if you limit the summoning to our dimensional coordinates, you still run a risk of summoning a different one if a second happens to be somewhere on the planet.”
“Because I very much doubt there’s more than one Royalty of the Mists on this planet.” Romulus admitted dryly.
He froze, his eye twitching briefly. “I’m sorry did you say, ‘Royalty of the Mists’?”
“Yes, given how it’s outside of your-” Romulus was cut short as the criminal was forced to raise their shield early to avoid having his dick shot off.
“I know what the mists are and why you shouldn’t fuck with them, let alone someone who rules it!” He ground out, more than familiar with the hell dimension full of demons and hallucinogenic gasses after talking to one of its few survivors. (Alright, finding this thing is now a much higher priority.)
Romulus narrowed his eyes, “I see…” before slamming his hand into the ground sending out a wave of light.
--- Scarlet ---
Despite wanting to keep fighting, she wasn’t willing to risk her and Bell’s new situation, not until she had a backup plan of some kind in case the labs came looking for them again. And so with a growl she leapt out of the lizard’s path and onto a nearby wall before using it to launch herself towards an exit to the room.
“After her!” The Arcane ordered as the sound of claws scraping through the floor followed her.
Turning on her heel she dove to the side, hoping that zigging and zagging through the rooms would be enough to help her put some distance between the overgrown lizard and herself.
Unfortunately, this proved fruitless when instead of trying to chase her through the doorways the massive monster simply bulldozed its way through the walls altogether.
Growling, she glanced around the large room she was in before instead of trying another door she leapt at another wall and used her claws to quickly climb up it hoping to get out of the lizard’s reach by maintaining the high ground.
An idea that failed as the lizard proved capable of doing much the same as her.
“Fuck!” She cursed climbing ever higher.
The beast’s snarling told her she needed to move quicker, and the sound of tearing metal warned her that it was about to leap at her, which is why she leapt up towards the metal beams decorating the roof of the shelter.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Skidding slightly as it dug its claws into the wall the lizard roared at her before grabbing one of the metal beams and swinging after her.
Jumping between the beams as they proved to be the only thing keeping the monstrous summon from getting her as it couldn’t bulldoze through them without losing the thing keeping it in the air.
As she once more narrowly avoided the creature’s claws she spotted the glass panels of the roof’s ceiling and leapt straight towards it, completely uncaring of the glass cutting into her skin as she broke through it before hitting the gravely rooftop in a tumble.
“Fuck…” She groaned, feeling the boiling of her blood once more as it failed to find the substance it craved and instead took its toll out of her.
The sound of even more glass shattering told her the beast had once more followed her.
She turned towards the beast still pursuing her before breaking down into a fit of coughing as the taste of her own blood filled her mouth.
It was during this coughing fit that the lizard tackled her to the ground, sending them both back several meters before colliding with another glass pane and crashing straight through to the hard ground two stories below.
On top of her the reptile pinned her down with one hand before raising the other to tear her apart.
Or that’s what it would’ve done if something else hadn’t tackled it off of her.
“The fuck?” She gasped, turning to the side where she could vaguely make out the lizard fighting something big and dark gray.
Blinking she moved to get up before freezing as she smelled something familiar in the air.
Her scarlet red eyes snapped to a nearby corpse, half mauled to bits, and likely the meal that she and the lizard had interrupted when they fell through the ceiling.
(FeEd!) Her other self demanded as her mouth began to water, and she had to struggle to not immediately give in and consume the corpse in front of her to mend her wounds and tear into the beast that had hurt her so.
Forcing herself onto her feet she moved to continue to flee.
--- Bell ---
“Oh, that can’t be good…” She whimpered upon spotting the blood and destruction, before looking around in case whatever was responsible for doing that was still nearby.
(Safe… for now…) Her other selves told her. (Beasts rampaging… Need to move…)
“Right… Need to move.” She nodded, knowing that her other selves weren’t wrong.
Turning back to the docile children she couldn’t help but bite her lip as she considered what to do.
On the one hand the kids seemed relatively safe, given how despite being found the people running this place hadn’t moved them after being discovered. While at the same time she could hear growling and gunshots coming from the rest of the shelter, meaning the others were still in danger.
On the other hand getting the kids out of here was the whole reason they were conducting this raid, and there was no telling if the criminals would change their mind after seeing just how many people were here for them.
(And to top it all off I still don’t know what happened to DeWolf.) With the blood trail she had to assume the worst and that the reason he wasn’t here was because he’d been killed and his body disposed of or injured and the gangsters had taken him away somewhere to interrogate.
Both of which were likely to be put on hold by the sound of fighting spreading throughout the warehouse. Meaning if she was unfortunate whoever was nearby was about to get swarmed by reinforcements, though if she was lucky she might still be able to help DeWolf.
Then again fortunate and lucky were things she hadn’t described herself as in years.
--- Mercer---
As the light died down a number of skeletal soldier looking creatures stood between him and Romulus.
“Necromancy or Contracting?” He asked, as he palmed an extra clip from one of his pockets.
“The fact that you need to ask tells how inept you are at the magical arts.” Romulus told him condescendingly.
“Yeah, I’m illiterate and the pictures are boring.” He nodded, trying to figure out if these creatures were Deadmen (who would regenerate from a headshot) or some other skeletal creature (which hopefully won’t).
The distinct lack of green had him leaning towards non-deadman. (Though you never can tell when magic and the undead mix.)
Romulus turned to the sound of a roar and frowned. “Hmm, I wasn't expecting you to bring other Vigils in on this.”
“Neither was I.” He admitted, not sure whether those sounds were good or bad given who he was working with. (Might have to cover for them with Nightwatch…)
“Then I guess none of us want to be here any longer.” Romulus noted before turning to leave. “I recommend those of you who can move, flee while you still can.”
Despite knowing that the shield spell was probably still up and running, he tried to take a couple of shots at Romulus only for them to barely crack the barrier the Arcane had set up. (And that is why my piercing rounds are made of iron and lead.)
Since he’d ‘attacked’ their master the skeletons took this as their signal to attack him, and despite lacking muscles they were both fairly quick and decently equipped with small bits of armor and metal weaponry.
Dodging out of the way of a sword swipe he clicked his comms back on. “Alright, I know I promi-”
“You killed Romulus?!” Kennedy interrupted, in a mix of renewed anger and lingering anger over their last conversation.
“No, but he’s summoned these skeleton things and I’m not sure if they’re just constructs or actual living creatures.” He explained stomping one of the skeleton’s kneecaps (at the best angle to stomp a kneecap.) “I’m just double checking where the undead fall on the whole no killing thing, because I’m fairly certain these guys aren’t sapient but they could just be mute, or speaking via dance like bees.”
“Please don’t kill sapients.” Kennedy told him with no small amount of exasperation.
“Alright, but I reserve the right to SHOOT THEM IN THE KNEE IF THEY TRY TO ESCAPE!” He yelled at some of Romulus’s downed goons as he fired his gun. “Just so we’re clear that was a warning shot, I didn’t actually shoot them. This time.”
He crushed open a skeleton’s skull while being sure to light up his double tap skull insignia as he glared at the goons.
They quietly sat back down.
“Why are you calling me Mercer?” Kin-Ken sighed. “It sounds like you’re still in the middle of a fight.”
“I am.” He admitted, ripping one of the skeleton’s skulls off before smashing it against another. “But Romulus is slowing me down with a small skeleton platoon… that piece themselves back together after breaking them. Lovely.”
He ran to the reassembling skeleton before jumping into the air and stomping its ribcage into pieces.
“Anyway, he’s fleeing the warehouse and I figured I should let you know to go ahead and call one of the Vigils, because I still have to secure the kids.”